Darkness Within

CHAPTER V

PERCY

As soon as Annabeth walked out, Percy ran after her but stopped by his door, he watched her running to her cabin in tears, the campers around were stopping what they were doing to point at her, and whisper to each other, some faces began to turn to him so he closed and locked the door.

Percy sat down in his bed, in plain shock. As hard as he tried, he couldn't register what the fuck just happened. For a moment he thought everything would work out between them, but a hard truth sentence later made everything derailed. It was the very first argument of the couple, and they failed to overcome.

Annabeth and Percy, were used to bicker ever since they met, arguments, disagreements, discussions, were quite normal when they were just friends, but every time, they would come to a common sense, and resolve it, but this time it felt different, this time it felt final.

Percy always knew Annabeth was hardheaded, so stoic. And for her, everything was simply black and white.

She has a hard time to build trust, always so suspicious of everything that didn't fit her vision of right or acceptable, and she had an opinion about almost anything.

When she first met Tyson, it took months, maybe even years for her to fully trust him. Percy knew her past with cyclops, so he didn't expect much on the beginning. But years passed and even after all those times Percy's little brother saved them, she couldn't find in her, a way to fully trust the teen Cyclops.

Then there was Nico, 'a son of Hades can't be trusted' she said, for months Percy looked for him, worried sick for the kid's wellbeing, and every chance she got, she gave Percy a piece of her mind about the younger boy, her strong opinions of his kind, taken from history books, comparing him to his evil siblings born decades and eons ago, trying hard to make Percy give up on him.

Next was Rachel, 'how could a mortal help us', 'is cowardly depend on a mortal', she said, always thinking so little of her worth, calling the redheaded 'Mortal' in her face with such contempt, like was some kind of disease. Thinking about, that was far from simple jealousy of Percy. That was outright Prejudice.

Even Jason, he had spent months at Camp Half-blood, and when they were reunited at the Argus II, Percy could sense her distrust of the son of Jupiter, a guy she had known for months. And of course, Frank and Hazel too; the two she had just met, but even after how much good Percy had to say about then, how he trusted the couple with his life, Annabeth were always wary of all the Romans onboard.

And then there was Bob, and later Damasen, as much she needed them, and as much she knew she depended her life on them, I could see her calculating eyes, watching the pair every move. When she accepted Damasen' gift I thought she was opening up, she finally was starting to see the world in a more differently, that she was learning that the world wasn't all the black and white she thought to be. But I was wrong.

Percy realized that stubbornness wasn't a feature of hers alone; all her siblings had it, and downed on him here they got it from.

And that was why Percy were dreading that talk, he knew she had not changed with Damasen. He couldn't voice that, or ask her to change, it would be hypocrisy of him, when all he wanted was for her to accept his full sea nature, as he had to accept her nature from Athena.

This attribute that came from the Cold Strategist of Olympus, now was splitting them apart. Maybe Athena always knew this would happen, that's why she said she didn't approve of our relationship, we were not meant to be together. She knew Annabeth would remain stubborn in her beliefs, true to her nature and wouldn't accept what I could became. And she knew how alike I was of my father, and his nature, she knew how I would became like him. She knew we would crash. She knew this day would come, all along.